Monday, June 16, 2014

hi all! i have FINALLY gotten the chance to put a new gift wrap kit together for my Etsy shop. i love coming up with these but when a lot of the items in it are handmade, they can be pretty time-consuming. not everything here is handmade, of course, but a good chunk of it is. this kit focuses heavily on florals and butterflies, with a coral, gold, and red color scheme.

i was greatly inspired by an old Daisy D's patterned paper; maybe you recognize it--i made this envelope out of it, and part of the butterfly garland. i still think it's beautiful and wish i had hoarded a few more sheets of it way back when!

there are several gold accents here, which i think goes beautifully with the coral and red. for this kit, i made a few different note cards and envelopes to make it versatile. you can wrap up your gift and then choose one of the correspondence sets to pair with it.

i used gold rub ons from Pebbles to create simple flat cards and while i have them paired up with matching envelopes, they can be mixed up or used separately.

here's a little sample if you want to dress up the outside...

this kit is full of fun stuff! transparencies and crocheted flowers (i did NOT make those, though i really wish i knew how), fun tags, glassine bags, doilies, cabochons, gold glitter clothespins...

and it wouldn't be complete if it didn't come all packed up tidily in a muslin bag with a few more matching tags.

this is what i created with some of these lovely items...

i only have a few of these so if you like it, you'd better get yours now!

Saturday, June 7, 2014

back today with another Festive Friday project. i went a little rustic this week, inspired by the pine branches, snow-covered house, and kraft-wrapped packages from the inspiration photo.

there were so many Christmas-y, wintry subjects to choose from in this beautiful composition and i'll admit that i found it difficult to pick only one! so i picked several and made a set of tags to highlight them. wood shapes are the common feature here--you know the drill; i love them to pieces. and there aren't too many things more rustic than wood, which is why i included at least one shape on each tag.

i chose elements in red, white, and bits of green to break up all the brown of the kraft tags. the white doilies and tags are reminiscent of snow and brighten up the project. there are stickers from Crate Paper's Christmas lines and the "Happy Holidays" wood veneer is Cosmo Cricket.

one of my favorite things to make around the holidays are "cozy" tags; that is, yarn-wrapped tags. i just take soft, fuzzy yarn and wind it around a tag several times, then tie it off in the back. the same technique works with most trims; baker's twine is another of my favorites to use. it's very easy to do and when i use yarn, it reminds me of a warm, cozy sweater--hence the term, "cozy tags."

in the background of the inspiration photo there is a house and i liked the idea of making a winter scene on my tag. i used a wood house from CP's Close Knit line and various snowflakes to make it look like it's snowing around the house. the red banner sticker is a welcome pop of color.

it's a bit difficult to see in my photos, but there's a strip of white glitter below the house, mimicking a bed of sparkly white snow.

i do hope you all get a chance to play along with this challenge--there are some very pretty cards by the design team this week--so please stop by and check them out. have a terrific weekend!

Thursday, June 5, 2014

i've had this card completed for weeks; i guess it's time i finally post it here! it's the midway point in the year over at Festive Friday...have you managed to get a head start on your Christmas cards? check out this week's gorgeous inspiration photo...i can dream for a corner in my house to look like this, can't i?

there were a whole lot of lovely things to choose from, but i was drawn to the different monochromatic creams, whites, and beiges. you can see them in the chair, the pillows, the floral wreath, and even the landscape outside the window. i used pops of red, just like in the photo, to add some interest and contrast. i'm not really a scrapbooker by any means, but i've recently discovered that the Project Life cards are just the right size for card-making, too. am i late to the party on that one? probably, but i'm happy to be better late than never! the "Merry Christmas" and red and white polka dot cards are from the PL Holiday Edition kit.

my background paper is My Mind's Eye (All Is Bright), and my little beige chevron tag is from the Crate Paper Sleigh Ride line a couple years back. lastly, i added one of my favorite wooden stars from Studio Calico to a bitty white strung tag.

it's been another week of ups and downs here...thank you for your kind thoughts regarding this post...to fill you in, we learned a few months ago that my father had a large mass pressing against one of his kidneys. he went through a barrage of tests and months of waiting because every test was inconclusive. in mid-May he had a laparoscopy (a minor surgery) that would hopefully, finally, reveal an answer.

my sister went to the hospital with himfor that and before the surgery began, his doctor mentioned that he suspected it was late-stage cancer so whatever the results were, the course of action would be to do what he could to "prolong his life." in essence--it was likely terminal. after the surgery was over, the doctor told her that preliminary results showed the mass was lymphoma. he didn't say anything more than that.

keep in mind that we lost my mother quite suddenly and unexpectedly in November. in January, we found out about my dad's mass and kidney problems and i don't know about you, but when i hear about a "mass" anywhere in the body, my first thought is cancer. so it's been weighing heavy on our minds for 4-5 months.

Dad's doctor went to a medical conference right after the surgery so it was another difficult week and a half of waiting until we had anymore information--what stage was it? how much had it spread? what could be done? and then...oops, no, it's not lymphoma--it's not cancer at all. it's some strange, rare kind of fibroid that has attached itself to many of the organs in his abdomen, including the ureter and bladder. it can't be removed but will hopefully shrink enough through a course of steroid treatments that eventually something can be done about it.

so while he is still having issues and still requires some invasive medical procedures, the good news is that he is cancer-free.

we had a week or so to be thankful for that news and then my mother-in-law had a heart attack over the weekend. she is ok--she underwent a quadruple bypass on Tuesday morning and seems to be recovering well, though it is still early. we are incredibly grateful that she was given the chance to have the surgery instead of being taken from us. my in-laws live with us so it's been very strange not to have her around this week.

so i've said it before and i'll say it again: don't take anyone for granted; you never know when they won't be there anymore.